Since 2003, congenital malformations have increased to account for 15% of all births in Fallujah, Iraq. Congenital heart defects have the highest incidence, followed by neural tube defects. Similar birth defects were reported in other populations exposed to war contaminants. While the causes of increased prevalence of birth defects are under investigation, we opted to release this communication to contribute to exploration of these issues- The Report in PDF

The price of traded food staples such as wheat, corn and rice soared 26 percent from June to November, nearing the peaks reached during the global food crisis of 2008, according to the Food Price Index kept by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization

In the environs of Tirupur, a reputed boom town in the southeast Indian state of Tamil Nadu, close to a thousand garment workers or their family members have committed suicide during the past two years

Yet tonight, in the tenth year of the 21st century, in the United States of America, under the leadership of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama, 23-year-old Bradley Manning is being subjected to same tortures routinely inflicted on other unindicted, untried captives of the militarist state

At the turn of the year, one's thoughts naturally turn to the significant events of the past year – earthquakes, hurricanes, scandals, floods, royal engagements, tax revolts.... I suspect that the long-term significance of the Wikileaks disclosures has not been fully appreciated yet

Mr Digvijay Singh is right when he says, “If I point out that Karkare was under threat from Hindu fundamentalist organizations, I am accused of being anti-national and pro-Pakistan. However, if a former Union home minister and the shadow prime minister doubts the integrity of a police officer like Karkare, and demands a judicial probe into the ATS action against Pragya Thakur, he is a nationalist!”

Rich and powerful “fraudsters” like Satyam’s Ramalinga Raju will get away; the down and out like Satyam Babu, a poor dalit wrongly convicted for a murder he did not commit, will rot in jail. Caste and – its modern correlate – class matter as never before in India today

Some are already saying that the IEA's forecast of a 1.3 million b/d increase for next year is much too low. The big unknown for the coming years is the size and availability of OPEC's spare capacity. If much of the 5 or 6 million b/d of productive capacity that OPEC claims to have in reserve does not really exist or cannot be opened in a timely manner, then much higher oil prices seem likely by spring

Humanity must plan its future on the assumption that international trade will be dramatically reduced once oil is exhausted. A dramatic reduction in international trade must be followed by a dramatic reduction in the human population and the collapse of civilization. Humanity has a choice – reduce population before international trade collapses using the intelligence of humanity or suffer the horrors of the dramatic drop in population caused by the destruction of civilization and the starvation of billions of humans

Veteran Human Rights’ activist, lawyer and former national president of Peoples’ Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) passed away on Thursday evening around 5 pm in Hyderabad after a long ailment. He was 82 years and is survived by his wife and two children

Eight young people, who the Fire Department said were “trying to stay warm,” perished in a raging fire during the night in New Orleans. The young people were squatting in an abandoned wood framed tin walled warehouse in a Ninth Ward neighborhood bordering a large train yard. The young people apparently had a barrel with wood burning in it for heat

My advice to Clinton is do not lecture anyone about human rights and legal issues until you clean up your own backyard. In fact the next time she decides to open her mouth perhaps one of her aides can do us all a favour and ram in a slice of humble pie

The headline is not meant to imply that I think he will. As things are he can’t because of the stranglehold on American policy for Israel/Palestine of the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress, the mainstream media and many institutions of state including the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. My purpose is only to offer an answer to this question: What could happen if President Obama was able to put America’s own real interests first?

The recent death of two-year-old Callie Murray hit me hard. She would have been three on the day that I began writing this, Dec. 25, the birthday of another baby. She was walking across the street hand-and-hand with her mom Ling Murray on Dec. 1. A student from Sonoma State University, where I teach, who was using a phone in her car at the time, crashed into them, killing tiny Callie and severely injuring her mother. Cars and cell phones have become two of the major addictions of our fast-moving civilization; they are both deadly

The current collapse and transition is and will be an onerous, but perhaps ultimately joyful journey, in rediscovering and re-embracing our luminous ground. Out of this return to the mysteries of which Alexander speaks, an opportunity for unprecedented patterns of wholeness and relationship offers itself to human egos weary of pretending that disconnected matter, people, and places are humanity’s final frontier

For low and moderate-income New Yorkers 2010 felt every bit as terrible as 2009. Though economists pontificated about the end of the economic crisis, those surveyed in the Community Service Society’s end of the year poll continue to suffer from crisis economics. The study entitled "The Unheard Third 2010,” asked 1,400 New York City residents about their current economic situation as well as their thoughts about the future. It revealed a city deeply divided between rich and poor

Rajasthan government has decided to absorb about 10,000 teachers and non-academic staff of aided educational institutions (schools and colleges) into the State-run schools and colleges in Rajasthan. They will be given an option for joining a newly created rural education service cadre

Few know that the citizens of India have a legal right to get free access to every book published in all languages in India and which is expected by law to be stocked in the four central libraries in the metro cities of Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai

Concerned Citizens of Florida.com (CCF) believe efforts must be made now "to address what may very well be the greatest environmental catastrophe of North America in modern history....government (and media) cannot be relied on" for truthful information. As a result, its site is a platform for truth and accuracy on a disaster of such magnitude. On December 1, CCF published a special Dr. Tom Termotto Gulf disaster report, titled "The Gulf of Mexico is Dying."

On December 23, Israeli forces shot and killed Salama Abu Harhish without warning while herding sheep and goats in Beit Lahya. Civilized nations don't murder nonviolent civilians in cold blood, this time leaving a widow and day-old unnamed baby. What "democracy" thrives on violence, spurns peace, and wages preemptive wars like Cast Lead. Besides America, only Israel, a global menace like its Washington paymaster/partner, together with Britain the real axis of evil

I am very upset about the court decision in Chhattisgarh about Binayak Sen. It is a huge perversion of our system of justice, and particularly of the laws concerning sedition. It’s not at all clear, to start with, that the thing he has been exactly accused of — of passing letters — has been really proved beyond doubt

For more than six months, Wired's Senior Editor Kevin Poulsen has possessed -- but refuses to publish -- the key evidence in one of the year's most significant political stories: the arrest of U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning for allegedly acting as WikiLeaks' source

When our racists present the ugliest face of Judaism, ignoring its universalist message, they do great damage to the religion of millions of Jews around the world. The most important Jewish rabbis were silent this week in face of the racist fire that was ignited by rabbis, or murmured something about “ways of peace”

Half a million trees planted over the past 18 months on the ancestral lands of Bedouin tribes in Israel's Negev region were bought by a controversial Christian evangelical television channel that calls itself God-TV

This is an extract from the novel, Pax UNita, published June 2006. In it, Australia's Ambassador to the United Nations addresses the General Assembly on a 'N o-State Solution' to the Israel-Palestine Conflict, and argues that ending the Conflict first requires us to end the ‘power of veto' in the UN Security Council

Helping challenged individuals to lead normal lives is the aim of the video clip recently launched Amman Jordan, Wednesday, 22 December, 2010. Under the patronage of HRH Prince Raad, the five-minute video clip shows slick cinematography and song to inspire and cope, lead and to show, to prove and exist

We the Palestinians of the Besieged Gaza Strip, on this day, two years on from Israel's genocidal attack on our families, our houses, our roads, our factories and our schools, are saying enough inaction, enough discussion, enough waiting – the time is now to hold Israel to account for its ongoing crimes against us

The Gaza massacre, which Israel launched two years ago today, did not end on 18 January 2009, but continues. It was not only a massacre of human bodies, but of the truth and of justice. Only our actions can help bring it to an end

The drums of war are heard again in Israel and they are sounded because once more Israel's invincibility is in question. Despite the triumphant rhetoric in the various media commemorative reports, two years after 'Cast Lead', the sense is that that campaign was as much of a failure as was the second Lebanon war of 2006

Here in Bethlehem were we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, we yearn for a just and durable peace. Like that good teacher 2000 years ago that spoke truth to power without worrying about reprisal, we believe the power structures will collapse and the word of truth will remain and grow. We will thus continue to work to build bridges and challenge walls (both physical and metaphysical). We believe peace based on justice for the dispossessed Palestinians will be good for all people who inhabit this historically burdened land and for the world at large

Top climate scientists say that the World must stop carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions by 2050 and that top per capita polluters such as Australia and the US must stop by 2020. However Australia and the US are involved in a Planet-threatening, greenhouse gas polluting gas rush and gas boom, the effects of which on America have been devastatingly described in the recent movie Gasland. I have set out below an informational resource that can help enable sidelined scientists and concerned citizens to unite on this issue – the awful truth can and must stop the terracidal, global Gasland disaster

A new report forecasts that average temperatures in India could climb 2 degrees C (3.6 F) within two decades, with even higher temperatures projected for some coastal regions. According to the Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment

Sen’s conviction happened in a court subject to intimidation by a government run by (and I use the word advisedly) paranoid politicians (helped by sometimes paranoid police officers). His conviction will and should be challenged. As it stands, however, it is a disgrace to democracy

The façade is crumbling. And as more and more people realize that they have been used and robbed, we will move swiftly from Huxley’s “Brave New World” to Orwell’s “1984.” The public, at some point, will have to face some very unpleasant truths. The good-paying jobs are not coming back

I get the impression that the military is trying to get some extrajudicial revenge on Manning. And this is another glaring example of how prisoner rights, the law, and true justice have all taken a back seat since George W. Bush declared his "war on terror". This is what America has become. And we don't have Bush to blame for it now

The Iraqi parliament ratified Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s new cabinet on Tuesday, more than nine months after the March 7 election. Its composition conforms to US demands that Maliki give cabinet posts to all the main ethno-sectarian factions in the parliament and senior positions to the Sunni-based Iraqiya alliance led by former CIA asset Ayad Allawi

Let me acknowledge that Chandrababu Naidu is the only political leader who has taken this important step to draw the nation's attention to the plight of the farming community. Naidu succeeded where other farmer leaders failed. I have always wondered why have the farmer leaders (who claim to be non-political) failed to sit on a nationwide indefinite fast to demand better conditions for the farming community

The worst of bad practices will continue, besides teams of lawyers devising ways around whatever regulations emerge. According to University of San Diego Law Professor Frank Partnoy, "Wall Street has always been very skilled at getting around rules, and this law will be no different," especially with its loopholes, half-measures, and overall weakness. Bankers got the best deal big money can buy. The public again was scammed

The life sentence handed down against Dr Binayak Sen by a court in the India state of Chhattisgarh violates international fair trial standards and is likely to enflame tensions in the conflict-affected area

There will be an appeal against this judgement. But, it is a sad state of affairs when after 1000 pages of the charge-sheet, the Indian courts come out the worse for the wear. There is nothing that reveals that Comrade Binayak Sen has betrayed the country. The judiciary has

PUDR strongly protests against the verdict of the Sessions Court at Raipur. We demand that the judiciary take suo moto notice of this grave miscarriage of justice and take measures to undo the misdeed that this verdict involves. PUDR also demands that governments stop taking recourse the use of sedition and special laws for silencing dissent and criminalising human rights activity to cover up their own crimes

Love and serve the poor. That is the crime Dr. Binayak Sen is guilty of. The place of his work is what we, the comfortably settled urban middle class, would call hell. Dirt, disease, starvation and poverty filled districts of Chhattisgarh. The wretched place cries, it shrieks for attention. And as an individual, Dr. Sen dedicated the best part of his life giving precisely that. Attention and care. Indeed, like Christ, Dr. Sen was a healer. Literally

There are two sides to the Bradley Manning/WikiLeaks story, one legal and one moral. The United States government is playing the legal game because it has a lot to hide under its overwhelming regime of secrecy, which of course is all legal. Evidence suggests they are employing nefarious methods to crush a key voice on the moral side of the dialogue

Because of modern alarmist reactions to the word "Palestine," many non-Arabs and non-Muslims take offense when it is argued that Jesus was a Palestinian (peace be upon him). Jesus’ ethnicity, skin color, and culture often accompany this conversation, but few people are willing to acknowledge the fact he was non-European. A simple stroll down the Christmas aisle will show you the dominant depiction of Jesus: a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white man

Nearly one-third of US families struggle to meet basic needs and 1.77 million Israelis are poor. About 850,000 Israeli children live in poverty, and 75% of impoverished Israelis miss meals because of cost, a 21% increase from 2009

The academic space is fast shrinking in Kashmir. Recently, the alarmed state’s intervention has been about the concerned matters of academia, it has booked professors for ‘politicizing education’ others are under scrutiny on the questions of ‘morality’

Recent episodes symbolize the dilemma of the seven-million-strong American Muslim community more than nine years after the 9/11 tragedy. Such frequent episodes are the result of almost a decade old demonization of Islam and Muslims by increasingly aggressive far-right groups and government-stocked xenophobia about Muslims

Wrongfully persecuted, she was sentenced to 86 years in prison on September 23, 2010, a gross miscarriage of justice since her March 30, 2003 abduction, imprisonment, torture and witch-hunt prosecution, providing no evidence whatever to convict

Israel's new referendum law defines Jerusalem as its "eternal and indivisible" capital, as well as requiring a two-thirds Knesset majority to cede East Jerusalem land to the Palestinians or in Golan to Syria. Failing that, either withdrawal would be subject to a national referendum. In other words, Jews alone will decide whether or not to return some stolen land. Those losing it have no say

Eminent human rights’ activist and award winning doctor, Binayak Sen has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a session court of Raipur, Chhattisgarh on Friday early evening along with Piyush Guha, a businessman, and Narayan Sanyal, a Maoist ideologue. He is convicted under section 124A (sedition) and 120 B (conspiracy) of IPC and Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act

I sit at my laptop trying to control my anger, grief and frustration. Dr. Sen sits behind bars (sentenced to life by a judge in Chattisgarh) and scamsters, hucksters lounge around in the company of lawmakers, home ministers, prime ministers as they shuffle and slither around with folded hands and fluttering eyes, seeking further immunity from justice

The PUCL will continue to work towards Dr. Binayak Sen release and take all legal measures in this regard. It will also work towards building public opinion against the ongoing persecution of activists and Human Rights Defenders in the country

David House is one of the few people allowed to visit Bradley Manning while he is detained in the Quantico brig. Here he speaks to Manning about the condition of his detention in Quantico and bares open the Pentagon spin

The United Nations office for torture issues confirmed today that they have received a complaint regarding the mistreatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning in detention by the US military, and that the matter is under investigation

The right to liberty is one of the foundation rights of a free people. The idea that any US President can bypass Congress and bypass the Courts by issuing an Executive Order setting up a new legal system for indefinite detention of people should rightfully scare the hell out of the American people

Mention fascism and most peoples' minds turn to Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Japanese Fascism, Papadopoulos' Greece and South Africa's Apartheid regime. However, most people are blissfully unaware of a rising form of fascism, more virulent than all past fascist regimes combined. Its aim is to subjugate the entire planet and its resources to U.S. corporate interests

Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict's claim that paedophilia wasn't considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s. In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society

The factual circumstances surrounding the outbreaks of both the First World War and the Second World War currently hover like the Sword of Damocles over the heads of all humanity. It is imperative that we undertake a committed and concerted effort to head-off Hans Morgenthau’s final prediction on the cataclysmic demise of the human race

As rightly pointed out by Dr. Y.V. Reddy (former Governor of RBI), commercial MFIs are leveraged moneylenders and borrow huge amount of money from banks and other financial institutions for on-lending. Besides, commercial MFIs operate on a mass scale serving millions of customers in the country. Therefore, it is high time that big commercial players realize that the “Wild West” period of microfinance is over

One of its unreported, unheard and hidden stories beyond the manger is the caste apartheid that existed in India for last three thousand years under the Brahmanical control. While celebrating Christmas year after years around the manger, India churches have failed to take note of caste and its apartheid, which also migrated within the Indian churches

The ghoulish killings of two Dalit girls in Moradabad, an industrial town not far away from the national capital Delhi, is yet another reminder of almost everyday recurrence of attacks on Dalit communities in India. They encompass, also the grim truth of the complete failure of the Indian state in containing, leave aside eradicating, violence committed against the Dalit communities

Whether Washington is about to approve expanded ground raids or is, for the present, using the threat of such a policy shift to blackmail the Pakistani regime into extending its offensive against internal opponents of the colonial war in Afghanistan, the basic thrust of US policy is to escalate the war. The inevitable result will be the destabilization of the entire region and a far wider military conflagration

The special operations units deployed overseas to kill the al-Qaeda leadership drove technological advances that are now expanding in use across the United States. On the front lines, those advances allowed the rapid fusing of biometric identification, captured computer records and cellphone numbers so troops could launch the next surprise raid. Here at home, it's the DHS that is enamored with collecting photos, video images and other personal information about U.S. residents in the hopes of teasing out terrorists

Think of those doing the research on altruism and compassion as a radical scholarly movement, one that could undermine the philosophical and political assumptions behind our current economic system, which is also our political system. These individuals and organizations are putting together the proof that not only is another world possible, but it’s been here all along, as visible, should we care to look, as Nabokov’s butterflies

In a lengthy interview with BBC News , broadcast Tuesday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange answered many of the smears directed by the media against him as part of a campaign to discredit the organization as it releases of thousands of secret US diplomatic cables

The US government has dropped its demand that Israel halt the building of new Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. An editorial in the British-based Guardian noted that the Middle East "peace process died a quiet, undramatic death" with this announcement

The job Mr. Lieberman wants most of all is Netanyahu’s. The way things are in Israel and look like going, it’s not impossible that he will get it. If he does become prime minister, I imagine that would signal a move from rhetoric to action as in the chants of his supporters – “Death to the Arabs!”

Instead of playing to each side's elites, those who seek peace must now launch a broad educational campaign to reach ordinary citizens (if necessary, over the heads of those elites) with a message that is convincing -- a message that says, here are the terms of a fair peace agreement and here is why we believe that if each side makes the necessary compromises, it will work to meet your best interests

While news is coming from Hyderabad that, the AP govt. is ready to apologise to Muslim youth and the community for its role in Macca Masjid blast case of 2007, here in the capital city of Jhakhand, the leading newspapers are hell bent to manufacture Muslim ‘terrorists’

I want AZADI from the six months isolation during winter. I don’t want to see it as a fate as it has been accepted by my people for this long. This isolation has rendered us as the most backward district in the entire country

Mohamed Haneef will be paid compensation, reportedly worth Aus $1 million. The manner in which his inquiry was conducted, the lack of evidence or rather the wrongful use of evidence, shows that there was a vicious attempt to incarcerate him, probably also the first showpiece for its 2005 Australian Anti-Terrorism Act. Since July 2007 when he was arrested to now, he has had to fight to prove that he is innocent

Iran has sentenced two prominent opposition filmmakers to six years in jail each on vague charges of working against the ruling system, their lawyers said Monday. One of the two, internationally renowned filmmaker Jafar Panahi, has won awards at the Chicago, Cannes and Berlin film festivals. He has also been banned from shooting films or scriptwriting for 20 years and was barred from leaving the country for the same period, his lawyer Farideh Qeirat said

The overall warming of Earth's northern half could result in cold winters, new research shows. The shrinking of sea-ice in the eastern Arctic causes some regional heating of the lower levels of air -- which may lead to strong anomalies in atmospheric airstreams, triggering an overall cooling of the northern continents, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research

Is our addiction to petroleum going to drive us Americans to deprive an ancient Native culture of North America, the Iñupiat, of their heart and soul? Are our Suburbans, our Yukons and our Hummers going to demand it? Our addiction has consequences

During Christmas time, the town of Bethlehem in the West Bank, the birthplace of Jesus, comes to mind. I wonder what Jesus would think were he to return to Bethlehem and to the rest of the West Bank today. Unfortunately, he would still see a foreign military force occupying the land. Since Jesus had experienced the Roman occupation when he was alive, he might not be too surprised about the occupation

Rachel Stephens argues that this Christmas people should “celebrate the continuing tradition of Christ, who railed against the law makers of his time in an attempt to bring love, hope and justice”, by supporting and following the example of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in vowing “to spread the truth and to work against the tendency in governments towards evil”

Perhaps it’s time for Israel to put aside the sword and turn its attention to plowshares that it might live in peace and justice with its neighbors rather than dominate them with the military might they’ve acquired from their American hosts

What can decent people do about Australian holocaust commission, genocide commission, holocaust ignoring and genocide ignoring? Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent people must (a) inform everyone they can and (b) apply and urge Sanctions and Boycotts against all people, politicians, corporations and countries complicit holocaust commission, genocide commission, holocaust ignoring and genocide ignoring. Would you buy soap made in Auschwitz?

Haitians remains plagued by a perfect storm combination of earthquake devastation, crushing poverty, raging cholera, electoral fraud, exploitation, persecution, Obama-ordered deportations, and world indifference to their plight, with few exceptions like Cuba and Venezuela

The WikiLeaks report on widespread torture employed by the Indian army and paramilitary forces in Kashmir may have come as a surprise to some people for it raises serious questions about the institutional integrity of the ‘largest democracy in the world’. However, in Kashmir the leak was simply digested as a mere attestation of what has been going on for decades. This lack of any enthusiasm at the revelations may be due to the near total cynicism among Kashmiris as the world has forgotten their sufferings

Will Congress take up the battle against the distortion of history, the word of mouth propaganda against minorities, spreading of religious prejudices against minorities? Is it equipped to take on the multiple tasks which are needed to preserve and promote secular values? Does it train its cadres in the values of secularism and democracy?

Is there any scope for comparison between an individual like Noor Muhammed Bhat and a state that by definition is infinitely more powerful than the individuals it is supposed to represent? If there is an element of protest and dissent in Bhat's conduct, there is also a background of the reality of Kashmir's unending suppression

We all remember the oil price run-up (and run back down) of 2008. Now, with prices similar to where they were in the fall of 2007, the question quite naturally arises as to whether we are headed for another similar scenario

If we understand on some level that in order to address our energy consumption, we have to go home again and we need the participation of both men and women to alter our consumer culture, this will have to be formulated, argued and organized as first and second wave feminism themselves were formulated, argued and organized

In a calculated and reckless provocation directed in the first instance against North Korea, the Obama administration has encouraged South Korea to hold live-fire drills in the vicinity of Yeonpyeong Island. The highly sensitive island was the site of artillery exchanges on November 23 between South and North Korea

The solemnity of that funerary march, the hush, was the hardest and most moving part of Thursday’s protest against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It unwound the bitter memories and images of war I keep wrapped in the thick cotton wool of forgetfulness. I was transported in that short walk to places I do not like to go

The case of Aasia Noreen aka Aasia Bibi illustrates how far Pakistan has to go to secure freedoms for its religious minorities. Christians and Hindus are not the only minorities who are persecuted for their beliefs but it is also Muslim minorities such as the Ismailis, Ahmadis, and Shiites who are routinely harassed, discriminated and also killed. Sadly, it is the case of Aasia Bibi that has brought some much needed attention to Pakistan’s sad state of affairs towards the treatment of its religious minorities

What if a Christian or Jew saw a Muslim salesperson throwing his card with Jesus or Moses’ name on it and called the police to register a case of blasphemy against him/her and the police arrested the violator? Most western readers would laugh out loud at this unlikely scenario but it is not a laughing matter for a physician from Hyderabad, Pakistan, who, unwittingly, threw a Muslim’s visiting card in the trash basket. He apologised to the offended party and yet the police arrested him under pressure from religious fanatics

Just released yesterday, a November 19, 2009 leaked cable indicates Pope Benedict XVI supports genetically modified foods, though he will not publicly admit it. A June 2009 cable from the US Vatican Embassy confirmed the Pontiff's refusal to take a stance on GM foods, which was verified in December 2010 by a Vatican spokesperson

Human rights advocates have significant new sources of information to hold the United States accountable. The transparency, which Wikileaks has brought about, unveils many cover-ups of injustices in US relations with Honduras, Spain, Thailand, UK and Yemen over issues of torture at Guantanamo, civilian casualties from drones, and the war in Iraq

Shame on Sweden; shame on Interpol; shame on Britain. And lasting shame, given this farcical hijacking of a sex crime law that is scarcely ever enforced in Sweden in far less ambiguous contexts, on the United States of America

Human rights group Amnesty International was mostly silent for quite a while after the Wikileaks scandal hit the fan. Initially, Amnesty had responded only to a handful of select revelations that corroborated its suspicions of human rights abuses, like the airstrikes on Yemen . Now Amnesty has released a much broader Q&A on the whole Wikileaks matter and freedom of expression. Below are some key excerpts

The public needs to see 'The War You Don't See', but the film's target audience is professional journalists, whose complicity in spreading misinformation is most responsible for ongoing wars. Without media complicity, peace would break out

On December 17, parliament gave Chavez enabling law power in response to torrential rains and severe floods that ravaged Venezuelan communities, killed at least 35, destroyed over 5,000 homes, and displaced about 120,000 or more people in 11 of the country's 23 states. He asked for one year. Parliament gave him 18 months to deal with the crisis

If the U.S. is an aggressor state, as Germany was when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, doesn't that change everything? America under President George W. Bush attacked two small nations that posed no threat to it

Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked hundreds of thousands of secret government documents to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks, turned 23 in jail Friday. The Daily Beast’s Denver Nicks, in an exclusive interview with Manning’s attorney, reports on his solitary confinement, what he’s reading (from George W. Bush to Howard Zinn), and his legal strategy

Assange is out of jail. But let's not forget that without Bradley Manning and many others like him, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and all our new-found public information would be as in the dark as Manning is right now

As House Resolution 1765, formerly 1731 and 1734, passed in the House by a voice vote enjoining the Obama administration to oppose a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence, the peace camp looked disheveled and mystified

A leaked September 2010 House Energy and Commerce Committee draft bill, if enacted, will let them establish higher-priced premium lanes (two Internets), effectively destroying Net Neutrality, compromising the last free and open space. New FCC provisions may do the same

Is it not better at this time to rely on the growing Palestine Solidarity Movement, peace from below, and the related success being experienced in waging the Legitimacy War against Israel, what Israel itself nervously calls "the de-legitimacy project" that is viewed by its leaders and think tanks as a far greater threat to its illicit ambitions than armed resistance?

Everything is alright, nothing to worry about. This time, the euphoria is not producing a harvest of victory albums and songs of glory, but a deluge of racist laws that apartheid South Africa would have been jealous of, and declarations of rabbis who boast of conserving our “racial purity” (and we need not mention the place where that notion came from)

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) expressed concern about increasing anti-democratic Knesset measures proposed or passed. They're "gaining momentum and, regrettably" the new session may be worse, though at times, language in original submissions is softened

Unfortunately there is no practical humane means of imposing a similar 6 percent annual rate of decline on the world’s population. If we let Nature, i.e. loss of petroleum, take its course, a decline of 6 percent would result in a drop in world population to half its present level, i.e. to 3.5 billion, by about the year 2020, a mere decade from now. The only means, however, would be a rather grim one: famine

I have avoided Western embassies throughout the world. With the exception of Irish, Swedish and Norwegian diplomats whom I know, you will find me at no Western missions anywhere. And I have never been kidnapped

Both sides cannot get stuck in this vicious cycle of blame game. New vistas must open up in order for generations of mistrust, violence and abuse to be overcome. The future is in the hands of the new generation who ought to be thinking out side the box by transcending old ways of thinking. All communities must reject the path of the painful past and must open doors for a hopeful future! Hope and peace for the future generations

Like the Roman Empire, thousands of years ago, the American Empire has never fought an offensive war. We have always been fighting “threats” to our way of life. While many of our best and brightest were being savagely killed and crippled by our “enemies”, corporations were making ungodly profits on war materials with plenty of funds for research and development for new weapons to kill human beings

Is the BJP in charge of the Hindu ethos? It is a way of life, isn’t it? It is about karma, isn’t it? So, let the Hindus decide what ethos they wish to follow. I don’t know how exactly Rahul Gandhi has been quoted, but since he has stood by the general comment, I’d like to state that any person with some perspective can see that ‘more dangerous’ is contextual. It also means that the BJP is not denying anything

The good people who protested on Dec. 16 at the White House have given us a beacon in the fog of war and greed, a beacon of hope that dissent, bravery, courage, determination, chutzpah is not dead in America. Chris Hedges, Dan Ellsberg, the Veterans Against the War, all of them…singing the old songs whilst chaining themselves to the White House gates - the gates of greed, hell and damnation…be there with them in jail

Reports indicate that the hardships from Pakistan’s earlier monsoon floods have been exacerbated by the onslaught of winter. The floods impacted 20 million of Pakistan’s population of just over 180 million people. As the temperature dips, hundreds of thousands of displaced children and adults are susceptible to pneumonia and other cold related diseases

Rep. Peter King (R. NY), new House Homeland Security Committee chairman, announced he's "planning to open a Congressional inquiry into what he calls 'the radicalization' of the Muslim community when his party takes over the House next year."

She's a heroic role model deserving support at her time of need, facing nine more years unless granted redress at a very tough time when prosecutors demand cruel and unusual punishment, not mitigation. Silence, timidity, and inaction are no options against it

Federal investigators "are looking for evidence of any collusion" between WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning -- "trying to find out whether Mr. Assange encouraged or even helped" the Army Private leak the documents -- and then "charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them." To achieve this, it is particularly important to "persuade Private Manning to testify against Mr. Assange." I want to make two points about this. This raises several questions about investigative journalism

Patrick Bond, author of Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society: Negative Returns on South African Investments and director of the University of KwaZulu-Natal Center for Civil Society, assesses the outcome of the United Nations climate summit

Bolivia's indefatigable negotiator, Pablo Solon, put it most cogently in the concluding plenary, when he said that the only way to assess whether the agreement had any 'clothes' was to see if it included firm commitments to reduce emissions and whether it was enough to prevent catastrophic climate change

Manufacturing discontent is an important method for the climate movement to employ in order to implement sound reasoning for moving away from modern capitalism and its predatory effects to something of the people. It is probably the most important component, because learning the truth about corporate control of our lives inherently leads to discontent amongst all but the richest in society

House Resolution 1734, approved unanimously by the House of Representatives on 15 December which strongly and unequivocally opposes any attempt to seek recognition of a Palestinian state by the United Nations or other international forums and calls upon the Administration to continue its opposition to the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state is the new order to President Obama from the zionist lobby

It is the very balance between destruction and rebuilding, despair and hope, occupation and perseverance that makes the Palestinian people powerful. Their power cannot be demonstrated in numbers, but it can be felt, experienced, and understood. " The Plight of the Palestinians: A Long History of Destruction" spreads the seeds of understanding, which is so essential to any meaningful and lasting change

Two major features of WikiLeaks are that (1) the leaked US cables simply provide documentary confirmation what sensible people had surmised already about the conduct of the US Alliance; and (2) the real scandal is that neither WikiLeaks nor Mainstream media (MSM) will report the horrendous carnage of 8 million dead so far in the US War on Terror. Below is documentary evidence of how one of Australia 's leading newspapers, The Age (Melbourne), actively censors reportage of this ongoing, largely Muslim Holocaust

New evidence that PET drink bottles can leach substances into the contents that mimic the sex hormone estrogen – phthalates and antimony – has put PET bottles in the crosshairs also of scientists worried about their health safety

The multinational giant Procter&Gamble will now utilise the government machinery to sell its products, thereby opening up a marketing channel that the private companies had never thought of. Socialising the costs, and privatising the profits. Isn't this a remarkable marketing strategy?

The September 30 2010 verdict in the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi case, that began as a dispute over a title suit but escalated into a full blown politico-religious conflict--- one that legitimized the criminal assault on a 450 plus year old mosque as also targeted minority life and property--- has raised serious issues for the future of Indian democracy given the fact that the verdict was disproportionately based on issues of contested faith and disputed histories

While Manhattan salaries surged this year, up 12% because of Wall Street's recovery, young black males continue to bear the burden of the economic crisis that ensued in 2008. A new report by the Community Service Society (CSS) indicates that only one in four young black men between the ages of 16 and 24 in New York City is employed

A review of " All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons/How to Save the Economy, the Environment, the Internet, Democracy, Our Communities, and Everything Else That Belongs to All of Us" by Jay Walljasper and On the Commons

Prescient even for Gore Vidal, as early as 2002 he nailed W.'s exit, “Mark my words, he will leave office the most unpopular President in history.” Unfortunately, we won't need Vidal's cheeky brilliance to imagine Barack Obama's finale, short of a miracle, as the most bloodied and compromised president in decades

Millions of lives were lost, an endless toll raging out-of-control in AfPak. Ending that atrocity and holding culpable officials accountable would be top priority in any just society. Only America's victims pay. Its officials, like Richard Holbrooke, are eulogized for services rendered

A random epidemiological survey carried out last month jointly by the state government’s health and agriculture department, revealed that 2,210 victims of Endosulfan poisoning in Kasargod, with nearly 200 deaths due to cancer in last eight years

This film exposes the corrupt JNU administration which is helping the contractors to violate all legal provisions and exploit the poor migrant contract labourers by denying them all basic facilities including minimum wages

The present controversy around Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s last days once again corroborates the fact that the malaise of social amnesia runs quite deep in the Hindutva brigade. Forget decades, they seem to be collectively forgetting, (or one should say do not want to remember) things which happened just one-two years back

Do you think extremist organizations of Sangh Parivar would ever be banned? Many would say it would not ever but it should be. But, the question is that, is banning a solution? No matter, what is the colour of extremism, Red, Green or Bhagwa. Certainly, it is not a solution

This seemingly harmless rituals to regiment the young bodies, in reality, prepare the ground to regiment their conscience as they grow adult. This is how we get to a population ready to kill at the rulers' will, ready to die at the ruler's wish

Israel, however, transformed Jerusalem from a multi-cultural, multi-religious city into a predominantly Jewish one toward eventually Judaizing it entirely. For decades, incremental progress continued. The goal remained constant, to establish irreversible "facts on the ground," making Jerusalem Israel's capital with an exclusive Jewish presence, despite Palestinians rightfully claiming it for their own

The Carmel fires of December 2010 were not the result of just another failure or the hand of fate. They arose from the policies of the government of Israel, which pays close attention to the stock exchange while ignoring the consequences of its own neoliberalism: wars, “natural” disasters, poverty and unemployment

Tensions remain high in the Bangladeshi garment industry as a result of Sunday’s bloody crackdown by the Awami League government, in which police fatally shot four striking workers, followed two days later by a factory fire that killed more than 30 workers near Dhaka, the capital

In a January 2008 meeting, US and Spain trade officials strategized how to increase acceptance of genetically modified foods in Europe, including inflating food prices on the commodities market, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks

"Guardians of women’s rights" in the British liberal press have rushed to condemn the WikiLeaks founder. In fact, at every turn in his dealings with our justice system, his basic human rights have been breached

Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning's detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries

In October, the Israeli parliament moved to enshrine in law the right of these associations, comprising nearly 70 per cent of all communities in Israel, to accept only Jews. The Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved a private members' bill that will uphold the right of the communities' admissions committees to continue excluding Arab citizens, who make up one-fifth of the population

Police mobilised by the Awami League government killed four garment workers and injured at least 150 after opening fire with live bullets and tear gas shells on striking workers in Bangladesh last Sunday

For Europe´s powerful states there is no way back. Their interests continue to lie in continuation of the export-oriented strategy they have been pursuing, and in survival of the Euro as common currency

Will silencing Arundhati Roy silence the streets of Kashmir? Will Professor Noor Mohammad Bhat's incarceration silence his students? Will the Kashmiri youth take any notice at all of a ‘show cause notice’ on Congress minister Sham Lal Sharma? The shrill answer is no, it will not change the ground reality in Kashmir

Tired of trying to seek justice through the usual channels about 100 women and men from women’s groups, students groups, democratic rights as well as concerned individuals gathered near the CBI Headquarters in Delhi today to gift the CBI some more bedsheets for their next cover-ups

Like any pop culture, the Indian media that had subliminally permeated the culture, influencing the masses without any responsibility is now going through doldrums; it has caught fever when the society finally sneezed

Ayodyah judgment also needs a relook form the same barometer of Indian legality and not RSS agenda of dividing people along religious lines. It is needed that all those committed to the values of amity of communities, and Indian Constitution, all those valuing the concept of Human rights come forward and spread the awareness about the Indian nationalism and build the bridges amongst religious communities

In the past few days, at least four farmers have committed suicide in the frontline agricultural state of Punjab. In just two districts – Sangrur and Barnala – more than 3,000 farmers have taken the fatal route in the past decade to escape the humiliation that comes along with increasing indebtedness. If a more detailed and exhaustive study of agrarian distress was to be conducted, I am sure Punjab would emerge on the top leaving behind even the suicide-prone belt of Vidharba of Maharashtra

I am very sorry to learn that Richard Holbrooke has died . Because I fully intended to bring him to Justice and get him criminally indicted for the genocidal massacre at Srebrenica on behalf of my clients, the Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja

Asked at a U.S. Senate hearing earlier this year what in the world he was doing and toward what end in Afghanistan, Holbrooke repeatedly failed to produce an answer. That could explain his deathbed conversion and his final words to his surgeon: "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan." As if his doctor could do what he refused to play any role in

President Obama ought to have trouble sleeping at night knowing that by allowing Israel to continue its illegal settlement activity on the occupied West Bank he has made himself, and his country, openly complicit in the Zionist state’s defiance of international law. In a different America that ought to be enough to have any president removed from office

Those who support genuine peace for Palestinians and Israeli Jews, based on universal rights, equality, restitution and the decolonization of the relationship between the populations, must escalate the real peace process: boycott, divestment and sanctions to force Israel to respect Palestinian rights and obey international law

Knowing what we know about the Western media consistently and reliably servicing war, neoliberalism, and imperialism, we should be certain that Wikileaks is not involved in supporting them too. We don’t want to hop on the Wikileaks bandwagon of cheering for a man who is “surely” a force for peace, justice, transparency, and good

A Zoo of our own Making: We will kill for empire and a parking space: A visual poem, video and words, on empire, alienation, and parking problems. Created and written by Phil Rockstroh. Directed and edited by Angela Tyler-Rockstroh

It sounds good enough, but is it good enough? It seems to me, far from Cancún, after looking at various reports on the conference , that the U.N. process was being cheered more than actual climate protection progress. I do not have much faith in agreements or intentions when corporatism and consumerism still rule

The Plurinational State of Bolivia believes that the Cancun text is a hollow and false victory that was imposed without consensus, and its cost will be measured in human lives. History will judge harshly

As long as a few of us rebel it will always remain possible to defeat a system of centralized, corporate power that is as criminal and heartless as those I watched tumble into the ash bin of history in Eastern Europe

President Obama and congress should push to include the Taliban in the Afghan government, prepare for a troops withdrawal, maintain strong intelligence ties with the Afghan government to capture the few Al-Qaeda operatives, and invest in the development of Afghanistan with the local population. Extricating the United States from this war, with its ever-shifting justifications, will be good for the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan

In the past year, criminal investigations have been opened against more than 1,200 Palestinian minors in Jerusalem on stone-throwing charges, according to police statistics gathered by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). That was nearly twice the number of children arrested last year in the much larger Palestinian territory of the West Bank

Public workers cannot be spectators in this unfolding drama. They must learn to act, collectively. Unions must educate their membership as to the gravity of the coming assault. Resisting these attacks must be done while proposing alternatives

Whether voters catch on and say no we'll discover by following credible polls as human misery index numbers rise. Make no mistake. There's nothing planned to improve them, more takeaways than serious relief. If that doesn't provoke public anger, what will?

Mohamed Harkat is one of Canada's Secret Trial Five - five Muslim men, bogusly arrested and persecuted. He wasn't charged, but was imprisoned on secret evidence, denied bail, held mostly in solitary confinement, prevented from contacting family or friends, and under Canadian law can't appeal a judge's ruling by order of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Yet he never before was accused, convicted, or even suspected of a crime. He's an innocent man now

The criminal class in Washington is bipartisan. On core issues, Democrats are no different from Republicans. Expect more bluster before caving like Obama, enacting his deal with the devil worth up to $1 trillion dollars. The lion's share goes to corporations and America's wealthy, middle and low income workers getting crumbs. The fix is in. It'll happen, promoted as stimulus to create jobs and revive economic growth. Not so

Kevin Cooper sits on California's death row at San Quentin. I hope Governor Schwarzenegger will reconsider now and choose to err on the side of life, not death, in this case. He needn't play the Terminator in real life too

It is widow’s right to express regret over her husband’s death being politicised. But he was also an officer, and for that reason his life was and his death is a matter of national concern. She may not wish to raise the questions she did earlier, but those queries must not die

Why so much of hush up with the widows of the martyred fellow police officers of repute? It is not only the Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar who should ask the home minister of Maharashtra to clarify the matter but the people of India

Two investigations into the devastation of some of the world's most endangered species in Northeast India appear to be stalled. Although India's Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh himself has called for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe of the smuggling of tiger parts, so far nothing has happened

The United Nations representative for freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, says he is now working on a new report on free speech and the internet. He says he doesn't think that the United States Government will be able to make a case against Julian Assange. But he warns it would set a very bad example for free speech if it did take action against him

These two Senators, and the rest of the Congressional and White House leadership are manipulatively counting on Americans to have no knowledge or memory of the dark history of the Espionage Act -- a history that should alert us all at once to the fact that this Act has only ever been used -- was designed deliberately to be used -- specifically and viciously to silence people like you and me

As a longtime feminist activist, I have been overjoyed to discover your new commitment to engaging in global manhunts to arrest and prosecute men who behave like narcissistic jerks to women they are dating

The US lackey Australian Government has reacted by threatening Assange with criminal proceedings, this in turn provoking widespread support for Julian Assange from both ordinary and eminent Australians

The value of these finds – representing the largest leak in history – was unmatched. It effectively brought to an end the illusion that all was well in Mesopotamia. As with the Afghanistan documents, these files too constituted a narrative, albeit an extremely long and disturbing one. The fact that 15,000 Iraqi deaths are now officially included in the Iraqi death count is in itself a remarkable achievement

The striking similarities of the two parties may be seen in the bipartisan attacks on Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks. By contrast, the emerging Green Party is unequivocal in its support for Assange

Time and conditions change but humankind remains the same. Greed and power are the sinews that bind minds indifferent to the havoc they wreak on the helpless and the weak; it's time for the US to exit the broker's role and give the peace process to the United Nations so that justice can at last prevail

It is only natural, then, that China tried to muscle its way in to prevent other nations from attending the ceremony to celebrate one who has maligned its reputation. Or so it would appear. China cannot deny Tiananmen. It cannot deny its role in Tibet. It cannot deny that under the garb of Communism it has prevented any other ideologies. The question is: Has China ever wanted to?

Entrapped, Martinez now faces merciless prosecution, pitting him against the Justice Department's intent to convict so the Obama administration can claim another war on terror victory. Innocence or guilt doesn't matter, just the illusion that America is now safer

An Exclusive interview Julian Assange gave to Brazilian journalist Natalia Viana of the online publication Opera Mundi on the Eve of His Arrest. He says, " there are many accusations. The most serious is that I and our people have committed espionage against the United States. This is false. There is also a so-called "rape" investigation from Sweden. This is false and will go away once the facts come out, but is being used to attack our reputation in the meantime."

The latest batch of the several hundred leaked US diplomatic cables concerning Australia, provided by WikiLeaks to the Fairfax company’s Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age, provide further extraordinary evidence of Washington’s direct involvement in the anti-democratic coup against former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last June

It is outrageous for any journalist, or respecter of what every American president has claimed is our inalienable, God-given right to a free press, not to join in Assange’s defense on this issue, as distinct from what increasingly appear to be trumped-up charges that led to his voluntary arrest on Tuesday in London in a case involving his personal behavior. Abandon Assange and you abandon the bedrock of our republic: the public’s right to know

Jews must not rent homes to “gentiles”. That was the religious decree issued this week by at least 50 of Israel’s leading rabbis, many of them employed by the state as municipal religious leaders. Jews should first warn, then “ostracise” fellow Jews who fail to heed the directive, the rabbis declared.The decree is the latest in a wave of racist pronouncements from some of Israel’s most influential rabbis

In an op-ed, "Chinese Leadership Needed to Save Humanity," published in the South China Morning Post on November 3, I argue that China should impose a rising fee (tax) on carbon, for China's own sake and for the future of humanity

In the interests of public debate on what constitutes good journalism and what media ethics are all about we are releasing below transcripts of a recent fictional telephone talk between N.Ram and M.Rajapaksa. Unlike The Hindu we don't believe in presenting fiction as news and since we are not authorized to tap other people's phones we confess openly to have invented the content of this entire conversation

With the arrest of Swami Anand Mitranand, and the police searching for his other colleague, both working with a Gurukul run by Maharshi Dayanand Ashram, at village Bhadas, district Mewat, Haryana, it seems an important dimension of the way Hindutva fanatics operate has come to the fore

“We were wrongly advised that we should take care of GDP and it will automatically take care of poverty. This is not correct. We need to take care of poverty and it will automatically take care of economic growth". This is exactly what Nitish Kumar did. And true to what Mehbub-ul-Haq had predicted, people of Bihar have voted him back to power. He invested in the people, and the people paid back

With help from Democrats controlling both Houses, Obama put a criminal cabal in charge of furthering the greatest wealth transfer in history. In the process, he's hollowing out America, eliminating the middle class, centralizing power, eroding social services, destroying jobs and communities, and creating poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, a permanent underclass, and depravation under militarized homeland repression

The website of MasterCard, the international credit card, has been hacked and partially paralysed by hackers, in apparent revenge for the payment network's decision to cease taking donations to WikiLeaks

Charles Arthur, the Guardian’s technology editor, points out that while MasterCard and Visa have cut WikiLeaks off you can still use those cards to donate to overtly racist organisations such as the Knights Party, which is supported by the Ku Klux Klan

Informal discussions have already taken place between US and Swedish officials over the possibility of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being delivered into American custody, according to diplomatic sources

Tell it to hundreds of women in US jails and immigration detention centers -- who charge that they can't get justice against accused rapists -- or women in the US military (two of out three of whom allege they've experienced assault.) In Haiti hundreds of unprosecuted cases of rape in refugee camps could use some of Interpol's attention

Critical negotiations are under way here in Cancun, under the auspices of the United Nations, to reverse human-induced global warming. This is the first major meeting since the failed Copenhagen summit last year. As we have just learned with the release of classified diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks, the United States, the largest polluter in the history of the planet, is engaged in what one journalist here called “a very, very dirty business.”

Concern for high-mountain regions of the world is rising, according to a new report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) today, which states that the Himalayas and many other glaciers are melting quickly, threatening lives by flooding, and by reducing the region’s freshwater supply

No matter what technology we invent (clean or dirty) our current way of life is unsustainable—there are too many of us consuming too much. It might pay off in the long run if we start learning how to live sustainably

In a frank and straightforward interview senior journalist and former executive editor of Tehelka weekly, Ajit Sahi demanded immediate arrest of senior journalists Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi for undermining the constitution by their alleged lobbying for A Raja as the Telecom Minister when Union Cabinet was being formed in 2009

With his decision to abandon efforts to persuade Israel to renew a freeze on illegal settlement building on the occupied West Bank, he has proved that the makers of American policy for resolving the conflict are Israel’s leaders and their lobby in the U.S. (including its many stooges in Congress and the mainstream media), not the man who occupies the Oval Office in the White House

The Turkish ship the Mavi Marmara, on which nine activists were killed on the May 31 Flotilla Massacre, is returning to Istanbul on the anniversary of 'Operation Cast Lead’. In a ceremony organised by the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), politicians, activists and survivors will gather to mourn the losses on the flotilla and in Gaza, while reiterating their commitment to ending Israel’s illegal policies

Action can be an effective antidote for despair. Working on behalf of others leads to more care and appreciation of one's own life-direction. The confusion of depression is a ripe time to build, to explore, to be more creative about our approaches. And above all, to organize, Organize, ORGANIZE so that when the tectonic political plates finally start to shift, the Movement is in place and ready to act

Obama's "compromise" does provide a two-year expanded tax credits extension, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, and American Opportunity Tax Credit as well as a 2% cut in payroll taxes in lieu of eliminating the Making Work Pay tax credit

On November 28, Haiti's first round legislative and presidential elections were so tainted, they elevated sham elections to a new level - a cruel joke, a process in name only, one fraudulent enough to make a despot blush. Now round two

There has been unanswered questions why has the people from North East India, particularly girls and women become vulnerable for sexual abuse in national capital city. It will be worth to look at some realities on North East Indian migration and challenges in mega cities

Well, they got him at last. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the target of several of the world’s most powerful governments, turned himself into British authorities today and is now at the mercy of state authorities who have already shown their wolfish – and lawless – desire to destroy him and his organization

In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court said "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government". The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth

Those who do not carry out acts of rebellion, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, are guilty of solidifying and perpetuating these crimes. Those who do not act delude themselves into believing they are innocent. They are not

Believing Obama is progressive is like calling a cat a dog. Only the delusional think so. He's, in fact, hard-right, a neocon, a warrior president, a corporatist pursuing anti-populist policies favoring wealth and privilege, not social justice when more than ever it's needed

In his collection of thirty-two articles by almost as many authors, The Plight of the Palestinians: A Long History of Destruction, William Cook provides a devastating assessment of Zionist violence against Palestinians. Relentlessly told are one atrocity after another, one act of deception after another, one broken treaty after another, one surprise attack after another, one policy reversal after another--all of which are described with both effective immediacy and an adequate sense of historic context

Material made public Sunday sheds light on the increasingly incendiary state of world relations, under conditions of deepening world economic crisis. In particular, the declining world power, the United States, is seeking to maintain its domination against the rise of rivals like China

Here is a fictional story titled, ‘After The Arctic Spill,’ that I’m offering as my public comment and am requesting that this story be entered as a public record in the federal register. Because it is fictional I’m not 100% certain what to do about the ‘under the penalty of perjury’ clause. But I have used real character names with the hope that they might perfectly fill these roles if it were a real story

As the recession grinds on, politicians in most industrial countries have an incentive to make exaggerated claims about the supposed coming economic recovery. Some say the recession is over. Obama is in the group that claims we're on "the road to recovery,” while other nations can only spot recovery "on the horizon.” Below are seven important social phenomena that point to a more realistic economic and political outlook

If quoting a Jewish racist's hateful screed against Gentiles is anti-Semitism, then by this logic, reproducing the equally horrific writings of Adolf Hitler against the Jews is mere anti-Germanism. Condemnation of his ghastly book, Mein Kampf, and by extrapolation, the entire Nazi movement, would then be nothing more than an expression of sordid prejudice against Germans. Nobody believes this, so why is it that criticism of Zionist polity carries with it the unique liability of being called a bigot?

On May 28 (three days before Israel's high seas massacre), Haaretz writers Jack Khoury and Yuval Azoulay headlined, "Hamas: Flotilla shows whole world opposes Gaza siege". Indeed so, and more are now coming from over 10 countries, including America. FreeGaza.org updates them. Angered by Israel's May 31 massacre, local initiatives plan their own missions. Their aim: highlight Gaza's siege and shame Israel by bringing aid until it ends

In the past days, Mr Abbas has again hinted at dissolving the PA if the current round of ‘talks’ fail. If indeed the best that the PA can reasonably hope for in any future negotiations is an ‘International Jerusalem’, and no Right of Return whatsoever, why wouldn’t the PA adopt ‘The No-State Alternative’ proposed in my earlier Article of the same name, and dissolve the ‘State of Israel’ along with the PA? Yes, Jerusalem would be internationalized either way, but under the No-State proposal, the Right of Return of millions of Palestinian refugees would be fulfilled in its entirety

The Mumbai terror attack once more proves that what comes to social awareness is just a tip of the iceberg. Sometimes what is presented is obvious and the deeper truth remains under the hue of the hysterical response. We need to learn a lesson in public life to treat all uncomfortable questions with utmost seriousness and not to be dismissive of the truth hidden in the missing links of the story

WikiLeaks must be allowed to remain free and provide critical information that public has a right to know. Gestapo-like conduct and McCarthy-era gagging are simply unacceptable in a society that promotes itself as an open society

As our planet is polluted and its resources increasingly plundered by corruption, arrogance, and greed of avaricious corporate vampires; we have reached an urgent historical crossroad. We must make a choice, while we still can, for ourselves and the rest of humanity. And yes, we must organize for real and complete systemic change, while there is yet time

NATO officials confirmed to this reporter that they routinely destroy Afghan homes, businesses and other structures that may be linked to the Taliban, but they refuse to provide any statistics as to how many have been destroyed. The Washington Post and The New York Times indicate that the practice is widespread and they have confirmed that whole villages have been leveled

It is unlikely, but not impossible, that Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare ever met, U.S. Senator Wayne Lyman Morse (Dem. Oregon), one of three Senators to vote against Lyndon Johnson’s fake Gulf of Tonkin resolution that authorized the US military to bomb North Vietnam a generation ago and a leading American legal scholar

By some accounts, it's the world's murder capital. The UN Development Program (UNDP) reported 4,473 2008 murders (61.3 per 100,000) in a country with about 7.3 million people, the equivalent of over 190,000 annual US killings, over 10 times the actual rate

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition. In the 18 years the onus has been on the victims rather than the perpetrators of the crime. In this scenario there is also the rather patronising idea of the good, the improved Muslim and the flawed idea of modernity

WikiLeaks.org domain taken down: DNS host cites ‘mass attacks’ as site vanishes from Web. Electronic Frontiers Foundation co-founder says 'The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops

One of the diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Colombo released by WikiLeaks this week shows that the Obama administration was well aware of the war crimes committed by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and his regime in the final stages of its war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)

WikiLeaks has been closed down world-wide and its heroic Australian founder Julian Assange is facing arrest. But the real WikiLeaks scandal is that while there is selective reportage of the WikiLeaks US document leaks, Mainstream media resolutely refuse to report horrendous US crimes that involve scores of millions of deaths and which are publicly documented by readily accessed data from authoritative UN agencies

On Nov. 30, the Madison County (Indiana) Planning Commission evicted a 72-year-old man from his 38 acres, reported Wish TV. County Prosecutor Thomas Broderick says the Alexandria resident, Richard L. Thompson, broke all kinds of laws -- no electricity, no septic system, no running water, and (lions and tigers and bears!) he lived in a camper on land he bought from his parents

Talk about psyops. If you can’t get the people to eat your dangerous, unwanted frankenfoods, just lie and say the Pope approves it. On November 30, the magazine, New Scientist, published “Vatican scientists urge support for engineered crops,” which the Vatican immediately denied

Besides their own compromised ethics, notably their ties to big money donors, both Congress and administration officials are guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, ones far greater than Rangel's self-enrichment

After the annual Thanksgiving Day turkey "pardoning" travesty, Obama granted nine executive pardons, a December 3 White House press release announcing them by name, date of sentencing, and offense committed

The ill-gotten money becomes the biggest weapon to fight charges against our polity and administrators and manipulate the procedure. They are helped in the process again by their business partners. The corrupt remain the most united and flock together. Clearly, India could boast of being the most corrupt in the world, thanks to public-private partnership

Delegates from over 180 nations converged Monday on Cancun, Mexico, as a two-week-long United Nations climate change conference commenced. They were joined by a swarm of industry representatives, environmental activists and media, all together numbering near 15,000. But what the conference boasted in terms of attendance was hardly matched by any hope for a comprehensive strategy to address climate change

The US mid–term elections brought the global climate campaign to its knees, but as November drew to a close we in Australia got the most promising signal for a long time that our own national leadership is beginning to take climate policy seriously. Is this real hope, or just clutching at straws as we sink into a bottomless quagmire?

It’s too late to avoid terrifyingly bad climate change, and avoiding catastrophe seems increasingly unlikely, even to the mainstream media. The numbers keep coming at us, too: greenhouse gases are near the all-time peak, at least since the industrial era began. The United Nations concurs: We’re unlikely to avoid runaway greenhouse. In short, we’re toast

Three scenarios of we may be headed are presented (continued exponential growth, downturn based on geological decline, and a collapse scenario). The major problems foreseen are different in each these three scenarios, as are the likely solutions. This post gives a brief overview of how these differ

On 22 November a jury of international experts announced their verdict that compelling evidence shows corporate complicity in Israeli violations of international law. The verdict followed two full days of presentations in London at the second international session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine from 20 to 21 November

Despite the fact that it was the seventh demolition since last July, this time the destruction of the Bedouin village Al-Arakib in the Israeli Negev was different. This time Christian evangelists from the United States and England were involved

According to the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, approximately 51 Palestinian children have been arrested in Silwan since mid-September, when clashes erupted after an Israeli settler security guard shot and killed neighborhood resident Samer Sarhan

The Wikileaks revelation that some Persian Gulf Arab leaders wanted (and still want?) America to attack Iran is confirmation of what some of us thought we knew – that Arab leaders are not merely impotent but as dangerously deluded as their Israeli counterparts

The more than 250,000 messages map out the complex interconnections of a US empire managed by a murky group of diplomats, secret agents and military personnel. They document scandalous acts such as the horse-trading of human beings for diplomatic access, the plotting of the payoffs necessary after the demise of North Korea and the employing of diplomatic muscle to shield intelligence agents from criminal prosecution. All of these acts are part of the everyday reality created by US imperial dominance

Wikileaks has committed the unforgivable sin of revealing the inner workings of Empire, what the servants of Empire really think and in so doing it has also revealed the extremely comfortable relationship between the media and the state in making sure that the truth behind the headlines is kept from us

As many wags have noted, the disclosures of Wikileaks have subjected the US Empire and its operatives to a full-body scan. Turnaround is fair play, because, until now, in the US, the powerless masses are subject to arbitrary pat downs and body scans, while the powerful and connected are massaged by privilege and ensconced in immunity

In several December 1 reports, the London Guardian discussed them, including its article headlined, "US embassy cables: Bagram officials deny detaining Aafia Siddiqui." US deception and lies about her date from initial accusations, regarding a bogus plot to bomb New York landmarks, charges omitted from her indictment

All the cities of the world have been affected by globalization. However it affected cities of the south differently than cities of the north due to the mechanisms of globalization of the world market which has led to the widening of the gap between the north and the south and between the rich and the poor. This paper discusses how this has been associated with economic, social and spatial polarization within the cities of the south and assesses the impact of this polarization on the different aspects of human rights of the people in a southern cosmopolitan city

The recent scandal tapes involving conversations between hacks and PR agents, is nothing to be surprised of. Neither it is surprising to hear or see in the media offices the gradation of journalist being rated on the scale of fixing deals he or she manages in political-corporate nexus or how snugly is mollycoddled by a lobbyist or an industrialist. After all the aim of media in these times is not to present the truth but to blur lies

Fact remains that government of Jammu and Kashmir on the other side of LOC is called a ‘puppet government’, yet leaders of that government spend most of their time inside the State territory and enjoy considerable more powers than the government on the Pakistani side of the LOC. And despite that fact, the government on this side of the LOC is called Azad - independent, even though they have very limited powers and they spend most of their time in a capitol of a country which is perceived as an occupier by genuine sons of soil

God’s mysterious sense of humor strikes again, afflicting the lunatic fringe with this especially ludicrous zinger: the delusion of infallibility. Beyond the ‘50’s jingoism of “America, right or wrong,” the right now stays this course, “America, never wrong.” We must be special, the chosen elect, morally superior to every other country. Why else would an omnipotent God put us in charge? End of discussion

Sakhi Devi never visited Sharmila after the fast. There was a deep fear that her emotions after seeing the daughter would break Sharmila's determination. As per the words of Sakhi Devi `I am weak hearted. If I see her, I will cry. I do not want to erode her determination, so I have resolved not to meet Sharmila till she reaches her goal'. A long period of ten years have passed. The question before us today is: `Will Sakhi Devi meet her daughter?'

The fringes of the coldest continent are starting to feel the heat, with the northern Antarctic Peninsula warming faster than virtually any place on Earth. These rapidly rising temperatures represent the first breach in the enormous frozen dome that holds 90 percent of the world’s ice

In 2008, a small Inupiat village in Alaska sued ExxonMobil and 23 other fossil fuel companies including Peabody Energy and BP for contributing to the destruction of their homeland, and charged a smaller subset with deliberately creating a false debate around climate change science. You might have heard of the lawsuit—Kivalina v. ExxonMobil et al. The suit was framed by some as a David and Goliath story, with people wondering if it would be the first successful climate change claim

We can't fool Mother Nature at any time. She's not fooled by trendy green euphemisms or oxymorons. Call it economic development or sustainable development, but she has only one word for it---growth. All human activity is subject to her objective measure, and it will be registered as having an impact

In our lifetimes, it will never be too late to fight global warming. Every degree will matter. Over the coming years and decades, there will be no better fight, no victory that will more enrich the lives of countless human generations to follow, than to stabilize the climate

Interpol has issued a wanted notice for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, heightening the Australian's status as a virtual refugee. The "Red Notice", circulated to the International Criminal Police Organisation's 188 members, concerns the warrant issued by police in Sweden in connection with a sex crime investigation in Sweden, and instructs anyone with any information to "contact local or national police"

Top officials of the Obama administration have threatened criminal prosecution of WikiLeaks for its latest release of secret US diplomatic documents. Attorney General Eric Holder, at a press conference Monday, declared, “There’s a predicate for us to believe that crimes have been committed here and we are in the process of investigating those crimes.”

The US has been going in the wrong direction for years by classifying millions of documents as secrets. Wikileaks and other media which report these so called secrets will embarrass people yes. Wikileaks and other media will make leaders uncomfortable yes. But embarrassment and discomfort are small prices to pay for a healthier democracy. Wikileaks has the potential to make transparency and accountability more robust in the US. That is good for democracy

Assange may or may not have raped a couple of Swedish ladies, as that spineless government suddenly needs to know, but there is no question he has disrobed the Statue of Liberty and shown all the world the whore she has become

When this “war on terror” started, my oldest son was seven. Today he turns 17 and eligible to enlist in the military with his choice of wars - his father’s (Iraq & Afghanistan) or his grandfather’s (ROK) (PDF)

The following is an excerpt from a letter by Palestinian political prisoner and civil society leader Ameer Makhoul, written in response to a postcard featuring an image of a lighthouse sent by The Electronic Intifada contributor Adri Nieuwhof

Trees are NOT just here to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen for us to breathe. Their purpose reaches much farther and cannot be ignored. Trees fight drought, prevent soil erosion, stabilize earth, shade us from sun, are key in the conservation of water, provide us with heat, control the effects of wind, provide shelter for animals and encourage biodiversity and nutrients for soil. So, the next time you see a beautiful tree, don’t just thank it for being beautiful; thank it for being on of the most valuable things on this planet

Remember, knowledge of and skills to produce human necessities will be the only form of wealth creation in a hand-made world. Knowledge is something that no one can take from you. It’s the eternal wealth that will help you thrive in a Post-Collapse world. Get Prepared Now!

Certainly Christ would be appalled by the selfish political conservatism of today that claims him for its own. He would be as much a leftist revolutionary today as he was some two thousand years ago. And no doubt, cheered by a mob of reputable corporatists, the money changers would crucify him again

Jews and Christians have much in common in celebrating at this time of year. We certainly want to use this holiday season to once again affirm our commitment to end the war in Iraq, to end global poverty and hunger by embracing the Network of Spiritual Progressives' version of the Global Marshall Plan, to reduce carbon emissions and population growth and to save the world from ecological destruction. We live in dark times--but these holidays help us reaffirm our hope for a fundamentally different reality that we can help bring about in the coming years

Since no rational human being can dispute the fact that the Earth is finite, no rational human being can dispute the fact that both population growth and economic growth must cease sometime in the future

In a strongly-worded ruling a federal judge in Oklahoma on November 29, 2010 granted an injunction that bars certification of an anti-Islam state ballot measure (SQ 755) passed in the November 2 election

Pew studied the relationship between incarceration and mobility, asking to what extent does it create lasting impediments to economic progress. Overall, how does America's burgeoning prison population affect the American dream? Negatively, in fact, for the vast majority because authorities make it so

Barkha Dutt came on her own show to answer questions by an independent panel on a channel in which she is the group editor. The host, Sonia Singh, started by saying that they had earlier wanted someone else to ask Barkha because they believed in a level-playing field. They should have continued with that belief. This show was a farce not because of the emotions, which are natural, but because of several other reasons